his categorical affirmation of a right of force, notified him
that they decidedly disapproved of his new publication. "You
see," triumphantly cried those whom he had always combated, "this
man is only a sophist."

Led by his previous studies to test every thing by the question
of right, Proudhon asks, in his "War and Peace," whether there is
a real right of which war is the vindication, and victory
the demonstration. This right, which he roughly calls the right
of the strongest or the right of force, and which is, after all,
only the right of the most worthy to the preference in certain
definite cases, exists, says Proudhon, independently of war. It
cannot be legitimately vindicated except where necessity clearly
demands the subordination of one will to another, and within the
limits in which it exists; that is, without ever involving the
enslavement of one by the other. Among nations, the right of the
majority, which is only a corollary of the right of force, is as
unacceptable as universal monarchy. Hence, until equilibrium is
established and recognized between States or national forces,
there must be war. War, says Proudhon, is not always necessary
to determine which side is the strongest; and he has no trouble
in proving this by examples drawn from the family, the workshop,
and elsewhere. Passing then to the study of war, he proves that
it by no means corresponds in practice to that which it ought to
be according to his theory of the right of force. The systematic
horrors of war naturally lead him to seek a cause for it other
than the vindication of this right; and then only does the
economist take it upon himself to denounce this cause to those
who, like himself, want peace. The necessity of finding abroad a
compensation for the misery resulting in every nation from the